Monthly Archives: December 2013

Squeeze the trigger, don’t yank on it….

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Ffolkes,

Can you feel it? Is the taste of real terror becoming familiar to your tongue? If not, you should be paying closer attention, because the signs are all in place now, and the show is about to begin…. or end, however one may choose to view the upcoming events on this planet….. None of those events are going to be much fun for any of us, but, hey, we made our choices, and now we have to pay the piper, to mix a more than just a few metaphors into a cocktail…. the literary equivalent of a Long Island Iced Tea, so to speak….

I’m giving here a bit of a preview, of the rant that will follow today…. This is a post I’ve been considering writing for some time, but, I was procrastinating, as I do with most things, because I am a firm believer in the power of anxiety to produce better work…. Well, it works for me, and always has…. I was a terrible procrastinator in school, but, by choice…. I found that the work that I put out when I was rushed and panicked always seemed to get better grades than the ones I completed in good time. So, for a long while there in high school, I never studied, until the night before a test, or the night before homework was due…

It seemed to work for me, as I got straight A’s my sophomore year, and ended up with a 3.9 grade point average over the course of the four years, good enough to be the class valedictorian, albeit in a very small class; there were only 36 students in my graduating class….. For my four years of high school, I ended up with less than an A grade in only four classes, and all of the work needed to do that was produced at the last minute, at times writing in the final answers for a math homework piece as the class bell rang….. I was shameless, too, in my using it as an excuse, and in using my number one status to aid me in manipulating the teachers, to allow me extra time for assignments, for late papers, etc…..

After completing the schooling I wanted, once I started working, I found that I could still procrastinate, but that I had to be a bit more discrete in choosing when to allow it to happen; not all bosses are as easy as my high school teachers…. But, they are still subject to the same manipulations, from those who do good work, believe me…. Being the one to whom everyone at a job goes to for information or help is a valuable position to assume, and I found it to be useful for my entire career in the workplace….

In the same way that I’ve never wanted to be rich, or famous, I never wanted to “rise to the top” at any job, because I was smart enough to be able to see how much harder those folks had to work than the rest of the myrmidons….. Our corporate masters have rigged the game for their benefit at ALL the levels in which they allow participation in the game of life, and the perks and privileges that go along with large amounts of gelt don’t begin until one reaches the very highest levels, at the point where the amount of money being made is sick and insane, much like the power that goes to the heads of those who go into politics…..

Before this becomes a rant all by itself, I’m going to cut it short…. sort of. A bit late to cut it completely off, since it’s already gotten to the point of cumbersome…. But, six paragraphs of my personal history, and my take on reality, should suffice to act as a sufficient buffer between y’all and the weight, and the moderately dangerous qualities that today’s rant will bring to you….

If not, well, y’all know where the bandages are kept, don’t you?…. I’m torn, between writing the rant, and letting it go for a day or two, but, if I do that, I may not get to it, and it all needs to be said….. We’ll see how it goes as we proceed…. I may have to make some adjustments to account for time; I DO have other things to get done today, and they are of significant import, as well…. so….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“I am only one, but still I am one.  I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” — Edmund Everett Hale
_____________________________

Here is yet another example of how much I procrastinate…. I KNOW I need to get the rant done, and I know it will be a hard one to write, as it is a subject close to home for all of us, and my emotions will take a beating in getting it all down…. but, first, we’ll go old-school, because I can, and because I want to…. which is the underlying reason for ALL I do, now that I think of it…. I’ll have to think about that…..

“Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.” — Calvin & Hobbes

“It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters.” — Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. – A.D. 65)

“Neither the water nor the moon make any effort to achieve a reflection.” — Deng Ming-Dao

Although a cloth be washed a hundred times,
How can it be rendered clean and pure
If it be washed in water which is dirty?

— Nagarjuna (c. 100-200 A.D.)

“We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.” — Aristotle

“My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage.” — Peggy Noonan, speech writer for presidents Reagan and Bush, 1996

“I like life. It’s something to do.” — Ronnie Shakes

I love it when the last pearl is so perfect for the grouping…. Besides, in this case, we can only agree with the sentiment, observing that it is a far better arrangement than the alternative…. as far as we know….
_____________________________

Kitten:   small “homicidal muffin on legs; affects human sensibilities to the point of endowing the most wanton and ruthless acts of destruction with near-mythical overtones of cuteness.  Not recommended for beginners.  Get at least two.” — strata@psyche.mit.edu

“The cat would eate fish, and would not wet her feete.” — John Heywood (c. 1565) — Proverbes, Part i, Chap. xi

Why, you may ask, are these here? Well, they just seemed appropriate, in light of today’s poem…. You may have noted that, aside from the rant, and parts of the intro, this Pearl has had a lot of humorous, lighter material, even more than is normal…. This is a deliberate attempt to lighten the mood, because the rant is a tough one… so, enjoy this while you may….

Ode to Spot

Felis Cattus, is your taxonomic nomenclature,
an endothermic quadruped carnivorous by nature?
Your visual, olfactory and auditory senses
contribute to your hunting skills, and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
a singular development of cat communications
that obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
for a rhythmic stroking of your fur, to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
you would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aide in locomotion,
it often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behaviour you display
connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

~~ Lt. Commander Data ~~

from “Schisms”, STTNG

_____________________________

Over the last three years, I’ve been ranting, off and on, about three, or four, groups of people whose actions have been causing the rest of us a hard time, and continue to do so, in spite of our best efforts to get them to cease and desist….. These groups, which I’ve labeled with various derogatory names, just to keep them straight in my mind, and yours, are that part of our species that regards the rest of us as prey….

To these assholes, other people are merely on this planet to see that they are supplied with all they wish to have, no matter how those others may feel about that….. Now, I could go into a lot of psychiatric, and/or psychological reasons for all of that, but the plain and simple truth is that they are assholes…. They were born that way, and have never been anything else…. Why they are that way still is another question, though….

Normally, the universe, in the guise of parents, will supply people with good reasons NOT to be assholes, but, many people never get exposed to those reasons, because their own parents don’t believe in them, but rather have a sense of entitlement that, in their minds, gives them the right to walk all over other people to get what they want…. This entitlement arises from one or more of several ideological repositories, each of which, though based on completely delusional material, is so compelling, and so attractive to the mind that embraces cheating and immorality, that it has been solidly in control of the society in which we exist for the entire history we have endured….

The shadowy corporate masters who control society, and who have done so for millennia, are adept at concealing their presence from all but a few, of whom they have complete control, and nothing to fear…… In this way they have manipulated society for all that time, to have the majority of resources and money under their control, thus giving them very real control over the rest of us, as we all have to eat, and they control the food…. it’s that simple…. That, combined with their willingness to use violence, without any compunctions due to compassion, to achieve their ends, has provided them with the means to maintain their control, and keep the rest of mankind in ignorance….

Now, however, their own ignorance, stupidity, and lack of foresight is going to kill them, and there is NOTHING AT ALL they can do about it….. Read this, please, and take heed of what it implies; note especially what it says between the lines of the statistical facts presented…. In other words, read it critically, so you will understand that to which I’m referring…..

http://www.thenation.com/article/177614/coming-instant-planetary-emergency#

This is it, ffolkes…. I’ve been predicting this moment for a long time, though I’d hoped to be wrong for the entire time…. But, it cannot be denied any longer, not now that we have the concrete evidence of our own imminent demise…. I’ve spoken often of a date when a certain flash point will have been reached…. That point has to do with how fast the temperature of the planet is rising, and the changes this will cause to the atmosphere THAT WE ALL BREATHE…. It is my incredibly sad duty to announce, that flash point has been reached…. The new evidence quoted in this article, regarding how fast the permafrost is melting in the Arctic environments, is not merely scary, it is downright terrifying…. It is clear evidence of that flash point I was referring to, and tells us, without doubt, that our time has come….

Do you know what this means, ffolkes? We are talking about an atmosphere that WITHIN FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW, WILL BE DEADLY FOR US TO BREATHE….. That estimate, of MAYBE fifty years, is now ensured of becoming reality….. That’s all, fifty years….. At that point, we all die, ffolkes, and there is no respite, no relief to be found, because, Hey, IT’S TOO FUCKING LATE!…. That’s correct, ffolkes, it’s already too late….

The flash point has come, and gone, and the chemical imbalances that our species has created on this planet will now proceed to kill us all within the next 100 years… Once the process of change reaches the point of parabolic increase, it is IRREVERSIBLE; it cannot be stopped….. And, yes, that figure is right….. I said a hundred years….. That’s if we’re lucky, and scientists DO find some way to slow the process down, once enough people have panicked enough to start trying to fix what we’ve done…

It can’t be done, though….it’s too late, and there is nothing in our technological bag that will fix what we have broken…. For many years, I held out the hope that, no matter how bad it got, we would find a way, through the magic of science, to fix things…. But, sadly, that hope was never realized, things just went from bad to worse, and, now, have progressed to the worst-case scenario…. I’d hoped that this little aphorism below would be true…..

“If the Catholic church couldn’t stop Galileo, then governments won’t be able to stop things now.” — Carlo de Benedetti of Olivetti on the folly — of trying to regulate information technology

But, it wasn’t true, because, without us knowing it, it was already too late, by the time we got the computers….. It’s a sad thing, one that threatens to make me pretty angry…. So angry, in,fact, that I may even consider breaking some of my own personal commandments, and spending some of my remaining years hunting…. Since I’m sure you won’t misunderstand me about that, and, to also make sure I’m not jumping the gun, so to speak, let me say this…. I am pretty pissed off about this…. None of what is happening was NECESSARY, or even likely, not without deliberate ignorance of the assholes who put themselves in charge of everyone else, trying to grab all they could for themselves…. If those assholes had learned to share, like everyone else, we wouldn’t be having these issues at all….

But, no, because the fucking Christians feel entitled, or better than anyone else…. or because the richest assholes on the planet can’t share…. or because the whites  hate the blacks and browns, who hate the yellows, all of whom are afraid of the greens, we have been doomed, sentenced to a gasping, unpleasant death at the hands of our own planet, and our own people….. It’s enough to make a strong man want to give up, and start blasting away…. an event that may very well occur before too long….

I’ll be ranting about this again, ffolkes, and may not stop until I get enough ammo to start my hunting…. Now, don’t get me wrong… I know my hunting won’t fix anything, other than soothing a few of my own feelings about all of this…. But, maybe, just maybe, the game I bring down just MIGHT slow things down, even just a little, and that won’t be a bad thing….

Of course, we’re all going to have to come to terms with the fact of our own demise, and sooner than we had thought…. THAT should be an interesting show, to be sure…… Actually, I’m kind of looking forward to the time when all those asses realize what they’ve done to themselves…. I hope I’m around long enough to see some of them get their comeuppance…..

“This ain’t no technological breakdown. This is the road to hell.” — Smart Bee
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So, I’m a bit unhappy with the rant…. I wanted it to be even more of an indictment, of the BRC, of the Priestly Hierarchies, of the Shadowy Master Class, and all their myrmidons in the police and military forces of the world…. I wanted it to be an indictment of all the rapacious, evil assholes who have controlled our society right into the dumps, cackling over their profits and indulging in their perversions, fondling their religious icons before fondling small children…. But, I just didn’t have enough in me to do it right…. this time…. I have a feeling I’ll be writing this rant again a few times, with a different approach, but a similar message… For now, let’s see how it floats…. or flies…. either one will do….

Well, it ain’t bad, and it does say what I wanted to say…. but, my sense of displeasure at its efficacy remains, so you will no doubt be seeing more on this subject before too many days pass…. As I’ve made clear above, there isn’t a lot of time left, and if I want to achieve any of my remaining goals in life, well, I might just have to stop procrastinating….

And won’t that be a good thing?…. Well, I have the feeling there are certain members of the shadowy corporate master group who wouldn’t agree with me, but, then I wouldn’t expect them to, so that’s okay…. Their disapproval won’t take them out of the scope’s range…. See you tomorrow, friends…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

As the black cat watches, the ritual begins….

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Ffolkes,

Brain damage…. it’s the only reason I can come up with to explain this…. I must have banged my head on a sharp corner, or something equally inane, that caused some bleeding, that led to swelling, and now my brain is frozen in place, never again to jump or play in the vast fields of imagination…..

Okay, so maybe it’s just the usual morning fog that I’m trying to see through…. but, a little drama never hurt a blog, now, did it? I have to keep coming up with a tricky piece of writing every morning, in order to catch and hold your interest, right? That’s how it was explained to me by Mrs. Rich, and Mr. Olsen, back when they were teaching us the basics of writing, in English classes in my teen years….

Now that I’ve been actually writing every day for over two and a half years, I’ve learned a bit more about the actual workings of the written story, or article, and know that the beginning of any piece is the most important part of it…. It doesn’t matter at all if what you have to say is right, or pretty, or important… what matters is that you can catch the interest of the reader…. Once you have engaged that interest, it can be led to where you wish it to go, depending on the available skills, and the value of the story being told…. but, first, you’ve got to get them to bite..

I’m trying to avoid using the old metaphor about fishing, as I think it’s over-used, and has lost some of its appeal as a teaching tool…. but, in this regard, it remains as valid as ever…. The writer must find the tastiest looking worms, er, ideas, and put them out to attract the fish, er, readers, not always knowing what which worms will work, which will move and squirm in such a way as to say to the fish, “Come! Eat me!”, rather than, “Oh, shit, get me outta here!” which is more likely what is passing in that tiny little brain…. I know if I were there, drowning, with a hook through my thigh to hold me in place, I’d be screaming and playing hell to get gone….

Now that I’ve destroyed all hope of garnering any of the gentle reader’s attention for this morning, with that less than attractive image of my fat old man body squirming at the end of a fishing line, with a hook through my leg, screaming my head off, I think I’ll slink off into the remainder of today’s effort…. I seem to have gotten lost here in the intro today, starting one place, heading off to another, then screwing the entire morning’s work with an ill-conceived trip into descriptive imagery, and have no idea at all how to get back to anything remotely dignified, or compelling….

It’s a shame, really, as I had high hopes for today…. I found a good rant yesterday, and fitted it together with one that jumped up and bit me yesterday afternoon, so I already had part of this one done…. which left only a poem to find, or write, and an old-school to gather up…. piece o’cake. But, no, I had to try to be tricky in the intro, and get all finillibrated, (yes, I just made that word up…), and turned around, so that I end up apologizing, instead, for yet another trip through the back alleys of my brain…. SIGH…. I’ll get it right one of these days…. Until then….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“If you are out of trouble, watch for danger.” — Sophocles

All us hippies know this one, because Jerry and the Dead told us, way back in the day, in Uncle John’s Band…..

“It’s a buck dancer’s choice, my friend,
don’t you worry any more….
for when Life looks like Easy Street,
there is danger is at your door….”

— Jerry  Garcia and Robert Hunter

Stay alert, ffolkes, it looks like rain…. and I’m not talking about water from the sky…..
_____________________________

Okay, here is the old-school pearl I promised…. I’m putting it first, because the rant is enough to tire anyone out, and I wanted y’all to have enough at the end to be able to think about it a bit…. so, let’s see what Smart Bee has in store for us today, to put us in the correct mood for an epic rant…. Shall we dive?….. C’mon, let’s go…

“Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.” — Horace (B.C. 65-8)

“We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented.” — Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948

“I guess you guys got BIG MUSCLES from doing too much STUDYING!” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom.  For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself; he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.” — Plato (428-348? B.C.)

“A man that expects to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic and is locked up. But a man that thinks people can be turned into angels by  legislation is called a reformer and allowed to walk free.” — Mr. Dooly

“All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.” — G. K. Chesterton, The Thing

“Don’t take life too seriously; you won’t get out of it alive.” — Hubbard’s Law
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Pity this busy monster, manunkind, not.
Progress is a comfortable disease.

— e.e. cummings, One Times One

It is difficult at times to find the works of Edwin Estin in their entirety, due to copyright issues…. for today, though, I’ll use this little piece of one of his best poems, as an appetizer, so to speak, with this little gem from Alfie to follow as a main course…. Enjoy!….

All Things will Die

All Things will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing

Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing

Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating

Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d–we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.

~~ Alfred Lord Tennyson ~~

_____________________________

Below, you will find the rant to which I referred above…. it’s another long one, thanks to the support I again found in the archives, but, it’s worth the read, for it will all point toward the rant I’m planning for tomorrow, one that will be a culmination, and a summarization, of all the rants I’ve done up to this point…. For today, please read, and pay attention to this, as it will end up being important for all of us…. a point which I hope to make clear tomorrow….

In order to achieve the proper understanding of this issue, and the following discussion, aka a ‘politirant’ of first magnitude, the article attached to the following link should be read first…. It contains some interesting information that is critical to the dialogue that may ensue, or, in any case, for a full data set to use for analyzing the issue at large…. Go ahead, we’ll wait here….

http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/Judge-NSA-program-is-likely-unconstitutional-5068946.php

It isn’t often this happens twice in a row, but, since I’m always attuned to the possibility of serendipity, it did…. happen twice, that is…. Below, you will find a rant I posted back in early March of this year, which, given the information contained in the article attached to the above link, is astoundingly accurate as a response to the actions demonstrated by the administration in this entire scenario….

First, let me say that I’m very, very happy that a federal judge had the courage and integrity to stand up against the tide of administrative pressure, which, as we all should realize by now, originates from the dens of the shadowy corporate masters, and special interest groups who dictate society’s course to suit themselves…. If you haven’t noted this from what you see happening everywhere in the public sector, well, I can’t convince you, but, it remains, nonetheless, the truth, well-documented in the news….

The government, of this country, and just about every other in the world, is in the control of the corporate special interests who control virtually ALL the money, and, along with that, ALL the resources needed to keep society working. It has been this way for millennia, and they are only getting better at the controls they possess over the happenings in the world around us, honed by centuries of practice and deception…. They are so good at it, virtually nobody even realizes the true nature of their control, or the extent of it…. and, that is just how they like it….

But, there are moments when a bit of progress is made in keeping at least a minimum of mankind free of much of their influence, and this ruling in a federal court is one of those moments in history…. It still remains to be seen whether the rest of the federal courts, up to and including the Supremes, will continue to see the actual truth, or whether they’ll begin to color it, too, with the paint provided by the special interest groups, in whose best interests lie the abrogation of the amendments…. For the moment, though, we can be encouraged, at least a little bit…

I was especially heartened by two parts of this report…. First, the judge acknowledged James Madison, as one of the framers of the Bill of Rights, speaking of his obvious and well-placed mistrust of just this scenario, of corporate interests dictating the abrogation of civil rights, such as in this case, the Fourth Amendment, by those in power, and how Mr. Madison would be “aghast” at how far it has come true today….

Second, I was encouraged to see the steadfast dismissal of the reasoning by the administration’s lawyers on the basis of constitutionality, as it goes to prove the contention by Eric Snowden, that the laws and policies being perpetrated by the NSA would be found to be such, to wit: illegal according to the Constitution of the United States…. which would, in turn, prove his innocence under the laws of our country, which, theoretically, rewards those who speak the truth in defense of their fellows….

Good to know SOMEONE is paying attention in the judiciary system…. even if one of the Shrubs appointed him… That, apparently, didn’t turn him away from the Constitution, unlike the POTUS who gave him the job, who was on record as thinking some of the Bill of Rights went too far in giving people certain rights….

Further than that, the arguments presented below are the correct response to the above, which also goes to prove one small point, to wit: even nine months ago, I knew something was wrong in the pictures I was seeing out in the real world…. Enjoy!….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From 3/2/13:

He who imitates evil always goes beyond the limits of the example, whereas he who imitates what is good, always falls short.” — Confucius

Perfect! If ever a quote could be applied to fit one group of people, this one would; it fits the folks who occupy elected office in this country like the proverbial glove. Ooh! Ooh! Here’s another one….

“Ignorance: When you don’t know something and somebody finds it out.” — Jethro Burns

Okay, that’s a good start…. Now, we all know that politicians lie to us…. It’s what we’ve taught them to do, by our calm acceptance of all the other lies they’ve told, from the very beginning. We expect them to lie…. then, when we catch them at it, there is this huge public outcry, as if it had never happened before….. (Shakes head, sighs….)

Sometimes, the behavior of the American public toward the political beast reminds me of a shark…. to wit: no memory of the past to slow down their willingness to rush into dangerous situations…. For millions of years, sharks and dolphins have lived together in the oceans. For just about all that time, whenever a shark attacks a dolphin, it gets killed, unless the dolphin is injured in some way, or, it is a baby inadvertently left alone. Always, if things are even, the shark dies, because the dolphins are smarter, and faster swimmers.

After millions of years, you would think the sharks might learn to let them alone, but, they don’t, which is evidence of their lack of ability to learn. The American voting public has the same problem…. they never learn to expect to be lied to, and always seem surprised to learn that their elected officials are, shall we say, less than perfectly honest? It, quite frankly, drives me nuts…. What is it about people that does that to them? Why are they so unwilling to use the mind that sits between their ears, rather than just carrying it around from toilet to toilet, which is all most folks seem to do with it?  I wish I knew….

“There is one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says yes, you know he is crooked.” — Groucho Marx

I’m starting to feel a bit of anger, actually, and I have a hard time not letting it out on the voting public, the idiots. But, it really isn’t all their fault, as the people who run for office are the ones who are actively imitating evil, and, obviously, exceeding the limits of their example. And the voting public can’t help never being able to quite reach the good for which they reach. This is why I get angry about it…. The folks who run for office tell the public they are going to work for the people when they are elected; we all know they are lying, but we elect them anyway. Now, how stupid is that? Pretty stupid, in my book….

On the one hand, the stupidity displayed by the politicians is deliberate, in its adherence to principles of theft and prevarication; on the other hand, the stupidity displayed by the voting public is, perhaps, not deliberate, but at minimum, misguided, and, ultimately, just as evil, in placing its trust in evil people. In the dispassionate view held by the universe, stupid is as stupid does, and the sentence of death is the same for both types of stupidity, deliberate and unconscious. It doesn’t care about why, it only looks at results….

What can be done about this? Not a damn thing…. Not only do I find that most people are unconsciously stupid, but they are stubborn about it, even when it is clear how being stupid is hurting them. Rather than use their minds to find a new way of dealing with these issues, they retreat into platitudes and dogma, and run right back out to vote for another idiot who promises them manna from heaven, or, more accurately, from Washington D.C. If confronted with their idiocy, they become even more stubborn, as they are unwilling to accept they might be wrong, and refuse to either examine any evidence of being wrong, or, will deny its existence altogether. (See quote # 4 in section one, above… Plato knew this about people, hundreds of years before Jesus was born….)

The politicians, who choose to live in stupidity, by lying and cheating and stealing from their own people, don’t even WANT to choose otherwise. Why should they? They’ve got it easy, with a ready supply of host bodies on which to practice their symbiotic parasitism, a body that not only accepts all their lies, but encourages them to even further depredations with their complete acquiescence with whatever the politicos want. All the politicians have to say is that the public is in danger, from this, that, or the other, and the public will allow them to do whatever they choose, as long as they feel safe from whatever fictional fantasy they have been told is dangerous….

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift; the rational mind is faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” — Albert Einstein

It’s an interesting spectacle to observe from the sidelines, but it arouses in me a strong feeling of sadness, with the anger underlying, as I watch, day after day, as so many millions of foolish people get taken advantage of by a few assholes. It definitely makes me want to buy a gun, even though I would only use it if pressed; I have a feeling I may get pressed some day, if I continue to make noise about all this.

I’m fairly well protected thus far by a lack of notoriety; the BRC and the PTB aren’t going to worry about me until I have an audience a lot larger than a couple of hundred folks, of which perhaps fifty regularly read my work. If what I am saying began to gain popularity, and was being read by millions, I’d be in danger; until then, I’m as safe as I can make myself with the tools at hand; which, if I say so myself, are not entirely inconsequential….. If I said any more, I’d be giving away my precautions, and that wouldn’t do, so, just rest assured…. I am ready to deal with anything short of assault weapons, with what I have on hand….

“Many, if not all, of my presidential opponents are certifiable idiots.” — Miriam Defensor Santiago — The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1993

See? I’m not completely alone! Actually, if you pay close attention, you will note this was uttered by a politician, about their peers, so it really doesn’t count as support of what I’m saying here. What, exactly am I saying here? Hmm, okay, since I’ve already written about 1200 words or so on this, it’s a good place to wind it up…. so, here goes….

Ffolkes, you are being lied to, daily…. hell, more like hourly, by those who have been elected to office to look out for your interests. I hate to tell you, but those folks never intended to do anything of the sort. So, it would be a good thing if everybody in this country would OPEN THEIR FUCKING EYES AND GET A DAMN CLUE!!!!!….. I don’t think I can say it any clearer than that…. That’s all, for now….

“Ignorance kills daily. “– Smart Bee
_____________________________

I know, I know, I’ve been getting carried away the last couple days, letting my inherent loquaciousness get the better of my self-control…. But, it’s all stuff that I feel compelled to say, since the stuff that prompts it keeps happening, right there in the news….

Ah well, it’s all getting to be a moot point, as will be seen by my post tomorrow….. It’s not one I’m looking forward to, for it will discuss some hard truths….. As will be seen, however, it’s all stuff that can wait no longer to be said…. With that teaser delivered, I’ll give up on today’s effort…. It’s an epic, and will fly, even with all that weight to carry up into the upper reaches, where the cool breeze of reason flows….. See ya….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

Only the finest of hydrogenated motor oils served here….

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2

Ffolkes,

Though my morning hours are becoming more regular, my brain is not, and the fear, unwelcome, unwanted, yet remains…. Paralyzing, unreasonable, it strikes me each day, as I gaze in terror at the blank screen, wondering how the hell I’ll come up with something new and fresh, when every thought in my brain feels old and wilted, like a three day old salad…. I probably resemble that remark more than I realize…. I’m not green, yet, though…. I’m guessing that’s something about which to be encouraged…

Encouragement seems to be the only positive to be found just now, so, we’ll take it and run with it…. I’ll just keep repeating this affirmation to myself, “I’m not green yet!”…. I’m not green yet!”…. I’ll say that over and over to myself, and somehow, about an hour from now, I’ll believe it… Of course, I’m going by what I’ve been told by some New Agers, followers of some guy named Jack Handey, who’s supposed to be the newest guru of the self-enlightenment crowd…. Having achieved my own enlightenment many years ago, while sitting under a baobab tree, I …. wait, that wasn’t me, that was the Buddha!…. What was I thinking?….

Hah! I guess I fooled you this time, didn’t I? You thought I was going to take credit for the Buddha’s enlightened words, didn’t you? Hah! So there! You can’t catch me like that! I’ve been boasting, er, sharing, yeah, sharing, that’s it…. sharing my knowledge of enlightenment, for many years now, and you won’t catch me so easily as that! You may as well go look for some other lightweight, sucker….

Where were we? Oh, yeah, enlightenment…. Yes, many years ago, I found inner peace. I was actually looking for some aliens I heard had landed near there, but found it laying under a rock…. I sold that batch to a guy on Forty-seventh Avenue for forty bucks, which bought me some very nice ganja uptown. The next time I found it, I couldn’t find a buyer (it was during the Bush recession, the first one….), so I just tossed it in the river, as it wasn’t doing me any good there on the streets….

Sometimes, I actually feel as if a lot of people in today’s world would react the same way as I did, if they did happen to accidentally find inner peace…. Hey, many of them most likely wouldn’t be able to recognize it anyway…. Today’s modern person lives under such pressure, with so many mental distractions from the internet, TV, radio, and now smart phones, they would find it hard, first, just to know they were in need of some inner peace, and second, what to do with it if they found it….. But, not me…. I happen to know there’s a good market for it on the street… the hard part is finding a sucker, and one of those comes along every few minutes, especially in the parts of town where I hang….

For now, though, shall we Pearl?….

“An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured.” — Konrad Adenauer
_____________________________

Today’s Pearl was partially constructed ahead of time, due to an irresistible need to rant that snuck (that’s my new/old replacement for the just-plain-silly “sneaked”…..) up and struck me, right upside the head, of all places, all of a sudden, yesterday, just after noon…. Since the rant that spewed out onto the page at that time inarguably fulfills any possible requirements for length, by a factor of about, oh, three or four, I’ll just put together a bit of an old-school pearl here, of the random, harlequin style, which I’ve found to be the set of parameters that best fits the need for a fresh, yet well-balanced pearl that we have here today…. Balance, as we know, is the key, as is timing…. hence, I give you this fine little grouping, freshly picked from only the finest of oysters…..

“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant”

“Truth and falsehood are both whatever, and simultaneously not so, rather than not.” — Tim Larkin, March 31, 1993

“Faith does not offer the least support for proof of truth.” — Nietzsche

“I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.” — Thomas Jefferson

“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” — Agnes Repplier

“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.” — Albert Einstein

“There is the state religion of mindless consumerism, which is the real message of all advertisements. The state religion is more powerful than any other force; the wise person practices patience and stealth. The wise person creates images that can be unpacked to deliver other messages.” — Jon Carroll, S. F. Chronicle, March 7, 1996

Aha! I see that it turned out to be a Miss Manners pearl, giving advice on how to live with honor, dignity, and a bit of good, clean fun, taking pot shots at political and/or religious pundits at every opportunity….
_____________________________

There is just something charming and attractive to my mind about the image that Li Po presents, historically…. An amiable, brilliant, always drunk poet, wandering around the Chinese countryside, observing the world in his own inebriated way, composing poems from the depths of his genius, poems describing the beauty he saw, in all he saw, for the rest of us to enjoy…. which we have, for the past thirteen hundred years, or more…. Even if he lived a life completely different than the stories one hears, it wouldn’t matter, for his poetry is timeless….

Alone And Drinking Under The Moon

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.

~~ Li Po ~~

_____________________________

I intended to write a rant about the following article (see link below….), about how the White House has been yanking the chain of the American people over this whole issue right from the start of the problem, when Eric Snowden first released the information he took from the NSA (an act of sublime courage, with full knowledge of how he was affecting his life, destined to be labeled a criminal by his own country, in turn itself engaged in criminal acts, on a much larger scale than his alleged theft……), thereby embarrassing the administration….. THAT is the offense for which they cannot forgive him, as it undermines their license to lie with impunity….

I like to follow up on any intentions that I believe to be righteous in nature, so, let’s rant….. Mr. Snowden’s release of information, reportedly taken from his former employer, the NSA, is, because of the nature of the information, in my mind, and the minds of many Americans, not an act of treason against the people of this country.  Rather, it was an act I believe to have been one of high patriotism, based on his concern over what the government was doing to normal people like him…. I would love to see him get the civilian equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, though I know it will never happen….

So, how does the administration respond when his act of courage brought on an outcry of indignation and anger, from the public, from Congress, from other countries and their leaders? They promised to form a committee, to “review the signals intelligence policies” that they have been using SINCE 2008! Ooh, boy, that’s going to resolve the issue, isn’t it? A committee…. Well, I suppose it COULD be considered a start toward a resolution… except that a committee, no matter what it finds, has no legal binding on the administration’s actions….

This committee was picked by that administration, no doubt with the intent of hearing a favorable report, but, instead, the group managed to come up with a report that showed, essentially, that A) they lied, and continue to lie B) they exceeded their authority and C) they need to consider  stopping…. However, since the administration PICKED them, they aren’t bound by any law to follow their recommendations…. an event whose unlikeliness to have EVER occurred approaches the infinite…. Face it, ffolkes, they never meant to stop, or in any way discontinue what they’ve been doing without compunction for five years now….

Ffolkes, this administration, which promised to be the “most transparent ever” has been spying, much more than they want to admit, for the entire time they’ve been in office… This, despite the clear mandate by the American people that they wanted a “change” from the policies of clandestine activities and secrecy that characterized the previous administrations, run by a former CIA director, and his son….

Instead, they not only adopted the Bush policies on spying, they increased them tenfold, all by having the NDAA, the underlying authorizing document for the spying, signed as an executive order, on New Year’s Eve, with Congress recessed, and the nation drunk, at the behest of the retailers…. all without the authorization of Congress, or the courts, or the voters…. just the POTUS and the now unassailable, hidden commanders of the NSA, the Cyber Command, and the ever present CIA….

They won’t discuss any leniency or immunity for Snowden, not when they won’t even ADMIT they’ve done anything wrong…. see the language used by the White House yesterday, when it met with all the leaders of the tech giant companies who have been the biggest victims (in terms of amount of data stolen) of the spying…. There was no admission at all of any wrongdoing on their part, or that they may have gone too far…. none. They don’t intend to do anything but stonewall this, and hope the public will forget, as is the usual case…. Well, not this time, not if I can help it…. I’m really pissed off at all of this, and am really tired of having the people in whom I expect a high standard of behavior, as the recipient of my trust as indicated by my vote, essentially and regularly, piss on my trust….

By now, I suppose, I should know better than to place ANY trust in ANYONE running for an office, but, I had hopes during the last two elections, that perhaps things might just have a chance to change for the better…. I have to say, however, that hope has been pretty thoroughly dashed by the revelations of the past three or four years, more so by the reaction of the administration, than by any of the revelations themselves…. The denial, the refusal to accept responsibility, the repeated and ever-increasing lies, the stubborn refusal to see or accept the public’s displeasure and disgust at their actions, all of this has been more disturbing than the actual information presented…. because it is ALL making them look even guiltier than we know they are, yet they don’t seem to care….

There is a simple reason, ffolkes…. and I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell y’all…. It doesn’t matter… They will do what they will, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it, because WE ALREADY GAVE THEM THE POWER…. and, guess what? They won’t be giving it back, that’s for sure and for certain…. not without a severe struggle…..

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/White-House-task-force-urges-limit-on-NSA-snooping-5074958.php

If y’all don’t see, from the tone and words used by the White House, that they know they’ve got the upper hand, then, I encourage you to go back to wherever you have the little piece of sand, where you have the hole in which you prefer to hide your head in the presence of danger, and put your head in there for a good long while…. Things out here in the real world aren’t bound to change, except to follow the course away from liberty, as it has been doing for some time now, all with the approval of the most ignorant set of voters to ever grace a planet…..

Okay, so, today, you get a two-fer…. The above rant was based on the article, but, the thoughts and some of the evidence isn’t new; it’s old, like I’m getting to be, with some reluctance, but hopefully, some dignified acceptance for the process, if not the end results…. where was I? Oh, right…. the following rant is constructed upon the same base, but using the thoughts going through my head in July of this year…. I had intended to use them to support the article, but, that seems to have stimulated its own support, so, just view this as “more thoughts on the same subject”….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“One of the merits of democracy is quite obvious: it is perhaps the most charming form of government ever devised by man.  The reason is not far to seek.  It is based on propositions that are palpably not true — and what is not true, as everyone knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true.” — H. L. Mencken

With this statement, Mr. Mencken has put his finger on the pulse of America, that is for certain. It goes a long way toward explaining why so many people in this country are so willing to believe the outright, egregious lies that are told to them every single day by the officials they elect every year at the polls that characterize our alleged republic…. They do lie, you know, with almost every statement that comes out of their mouths….

They begin with the most important lie they tell, from which all the others spring, and that is the lie they tell when they tell you that they want to be elected so they can work for YOU! Each and every politician learns early in their career, if they are at all to be successful, they MUST portray themselves as a public-spirited, honest, and tireless worker whose only purpose is to make life better for their constituents….

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth…. NONE of them are at all concerned with any of that nonsense; they are there to carry out their own agenda, which has very little to do with what is good for the general run of mankind…. No, they are there to serve the interests of the men and women who pay them, those lobbyists and special interest representatives who run the businesses of the corporate masters.

The people on the street cannot provide them with the perks, or the cash, that the clandestine rulers are able to come up with, other than peripherally, by electing them in the first place…. Once elected, their true colors come out into the light of day, and it can be easily seen how their actions are never congruent with what they have promised to the people who elected them….

It’s all about power and money to these folks, not service. In my entire life of observing politics around the world, I have yet to see a single elected official who could be shown to be honest, not at the national level. The one who came the closest was Jimmy Carter, and his presidency was marked by how little got done, because he was so honest that the true politicians in Congress blocked every reform he tried to institute during his time in office. His actions during that time showed him to be the exception to the usual rule for politicians, which is why, I believe, he was so ineffective as a legislator….

“Invest in America — Buy Japan!”– Smart Bee

Other than Carter, I have seen concrete proof that EVERY President of this country has lied to the American people, not just once or twice, but continuously, about nearly everything. Time and time again, public outcries are heard or seen in the news about some new revelation regarding something some politician lied about, just like it is breaking news or something, when it is actually the normal state of affairs….

I don’t know why it is, but if a man on a TV set, wearing a suit and tie, makes a statement to the public, the general public will believe it, sometimes fanatically, without ever examining it for whether or not it is true…. Then, when it turns out they were lied to, they get all upset and vocalize their displeasure, never once admitting it was their own cupidity that allowed the lie to occur in the first place…. It makes me wonder what happened to people in this country, to make them go soft in the head….

“Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.” — Anton Chekhov

Did you ever notice how many politicians were lawyers, first? Most of them, as it turns out, for the simple reason that learning to be a lawyer gives a politician two advantageous types of training…. One advantage is that law school teaches the student how to lie in every imaginable way, in order to ascertain which kinds of lies are legal…. The other advantage is their primary motivation….

If asked, a very large percentage of lawyers will tell you their reason for becoming a barrister in the first place is that it is a good way to get rich, (without mentioning, of course, that this is true only as long as one doesn’t give a shit about other people, and what that might do to them).  In other words, they make their money by taking advantage of people’s misery, holding them as hostages against their own destiny, in order to gain resources, i.e. money, and its sidekick, power….

Then the lawyers realize that their training is perfect for politics…. The ability to lie with facility comes in very handy to anyone who wants to be in the public eye, as that is how one gets elected in the first place…. Tell people what they want to hear, and they will vote for you, every time, coming back to the same trough to eat, even though they get screwed, time after time…. Having the facility to ignore what happens to others, due to their own actions, is the other skill so important to the political set, and the training one receives as a lawyer fits right into that category….

“Watching the democratic party in a presidential contest is like watching a washing machine with a defective bearing:  It starts up smoothly enough, but soon, it begins to wobble and shake, jumping violently from place to place, until it tears itself to pieces, spewing dirty laundry all over the room.” – Smart Bee

Some people will say that there ARE some good lawyers out there, and I won’t argue that…. but, they’re still lawyers, not politicians, aren’t they? They’re doing what they can to help ffolkes find their way through the morass of our legal system to get what they need, even occasionally finding some justice…. But, they aren’t going further, and going into public service, are they? They’re still in place, where they can help, but, they are so few and far between, they are hard to find, and so are very busy, seldom having the time or resources to work against their less honest colleagues. Plus, they really are very few in number, as altruists seldom become lawyers in the first place….

I can see that this has evolved into a full scale rant, and we’ve just begun the day, so I’ll call a halt here. I often feel as if I’m preaching to the choir, anyway, when I go through this stuff again…. It’s all familiar material around here, so it isn’t as if I’m presenting new ideas for your examination…. No, this is all old stuff, and, sadly, doesn’t seem to ever create the outrage that I feel in very many other ffolkes…. which is too bad….  I forget who said that “if you keep on doing things the same ways as you always have, things will always be the way they’ve always been….”, but, they were absolutely correct…. We are on a path to our own destruction, clearly, but, nobody seems to care.

Nobody, that is, who seems able to DO anything about it, and they are the ones who will need to make the changes…. The people in authority over the rest of us are wearing blinders in this respect…. The idea that what they are doing is wrong, and will eventually kill us all, doesn’t fit into their world-view, so they won’t believe it, and will continue to refuse to make any of the changes needed to re-direct our steps onto a path less dangerous.

It is up to the rest of us to get it done, and that may entail overthrowing the current crop of rulers, either by the vote, or by the less agreeable option of using the necessary force, while making sure the new crop will act in OUR best interests, rather than their own…. If it does happen, it will be the first time in history, which is fine with me…. just as long as it is not the LAST time in history….

“… democracy is not something you believe in, or a place you hang your hat, but it’s something you do.  You participate.  If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles and falls apart.” — Abby Hoffman
_____________________________

Well, I seem to have a problem with stopping, once I get started on a rant, don’t I?…. Today, I even extended the guilty piece with an even longer supporting piece, that, despite its length, is of such good fit, I can’t bring myself to leave it out…. it just makes the whole thing complete. I can see, though, that some ffolkes may not get all the way through it, which is okay, just this once…. Next time, it will ALL be on the quiz….

Besides, what I wrote today is of the category that people really need to think more about, because if they don’t start paying attention to what I’m saying, they’re going to reap the rewards of the inattention they’ve been putting into their lives, in regards their beloved ruling class, and the degree to which they allow them to victimize the public without consequence….

And there I go, right back into the rant…. Let’s go proof, and see if this is ready to fly…. One thing is for sure…. nobody can accuse me of not getting it all out…. which, as we know, is exactly WHY I do this…. Better out than in, I always say…. But, they also say, say what you have to say, then, shut up… so, I’ll do that now, so nobody can say I can’t take advice…. See ya….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

Manifest destiny has been a persistent delusion…..

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Reply

Ffolkes,

You’ll have to (grunt…wheeze….) excuse the mess around here this, (oof…) morning; we had an incident during the night. Look out! Duck! Whew! That one almost got ya! Sorry ’bout that, I thought we’d gotten all of them, but, them little suckers is tricky, they is….(Snap! A fresh plastic garbage bag is unfurled for use….) What? What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m cleaning up after an attack by creatures of the night; what does it look like I’m doing? (Picks up a full garbage bag, dumps it out the window….) They showed up about 3:30 AM, when they knew I’d be asleep (damn, I just realized…. Now I’ll have to start randomizing my sleep patterns, if they’re going to be watching me again….), and tried to bust through the front door…..

It was touch and go at first; I admit it, we were caught off guard, almost enough to have lost the day, were it not for a bit of luck…. I swear, I was never so glad to see a vampire hunter as I was this morning….. I’ll also have to remember to ask him just why he so conveniently showed up here at that moment in time…. it seems a bit of a coincidence, but, we’ll see…. This one at least doesn’t have the look of a council lackey about him, nor does he stink of money…. and he was an adept killer, so, I’ll listen to him, to see how these “coincidences” happened to come together so “conveniently”….

Well, I’d ask him, if he were really here, or if I were interested in carrying on with this beginning to a story, but….. it was mostly just an exercise, to get the juices flowing, to pull y’all into the web of my interest, and hold you here while I worked my wiles upon your unsuspecting minds…. Is it working? God, I hope so…. something has to work! I’m getting pretty tired of meandering and blathering every morning, and the occasional outburst of actual fictional writing is too occasional to count on each day. I’d find and stick to a template, but, that never has worked very well for me… it works okay for the closing lines, but, here at the start, I need more…

Exactly what that ‘more’ might be remains a mystery to me, and therefore, to you as well…. I know, it’s probably just as hard on y’all as it is on me, but, I really don’t see how, as I suffer a daily dose of fear, followed by panic, followed by an outburst of writing, followed by depression…. Well, no, that’s not accurate, either…. it’s not that simple, nor that straight-forward…. In fact, I’m not sure just WHAT it is, which is probably the root of the whole issue…. If I knew what should be here, then I’d put it here… As it is, I have to conduct a search each morning, and never know just what might happen…. Fun, at times, but mostly just a worry for me, until it’s done…

Why, look, I do believe it’s done again! How ’bout that? Here I was, all worried and full of angst, and I was getting it done the whole time…. Golly Gee, Mr. Wizard! That was fun! Can we do it again? No? But,….. oh, okay, we’ll just go on to today’s effort, and forget about the intro…. damn things, always giving me fits…. pshaw!

Shall we Pearl?…..

Hompu’wIj ghorlaH ‘oy’naQpu’ je naghpu’ ‘ach jiH mu’oy’laHbe’pongpu’ — Klingon phrase, roughly translated as: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.’ — Smart Bee
_____________________________

I wasn’t going to rant today, again, because I just don’t feel the correct degree of outrage to do it justice…. more’s the pity…. because they’re still at it out there in the world of politics, confusing the art of being an asshole with the governing process, and getting the dirt all over the rest of us…. I found this article, and it gave me a quote I couldn’t resist using… it will appear below the link, which leads to the article in it’s entirety….

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/12/17/silicon-valley-tech-leaders-to-obama-aggressively-reform-nsa/

“Today, the President and the Vice President met with executives from leading tech companies in the Roosevelt Room. The group discussed a number of issues of shared importance to the federal government and the tech sector, including the progress being made to improve performance and capacity issues with HeathCare.Gov. The President also announced that Kurt DelBene, who most recently served as president of the Microsoft Office Division, will succeed Jeff Zients as Senior Advisor to Secretary Sebelius who will lead our ongoing efforts to improve HealthCare.gov and the Health Insurance Marketplace starting this Wednesday. The group discussed the challenges surround federal IT procurement. The President made clear his continued focus on improving the way we deliver technology to maximize innovation, efficiency and customer service, and encouraged the CEOs to continue to share their ideas on how to do so. Finally, the group discussed the national security and economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures. This was an opportunity for the President to hear from CEOs directly as we near completion of our review of signals intelligence programs, building on the feedback we’ve received from the private sector in recent weeks and months. The President made clear his belief in an open, free, and innovative internet and listened to the group’s concerns and recommendations, and made clear that we will consider their input as well as the input of other outside stakeholders as we finalize our review of signals intelligence programs ”

This statement, the official press release by the White House in response to the meeting with the CEOs of the tech giants, disturbs me intensely, in many ways… as did the statement by the giant tech companies in a joint announcement of purpose, to wit:  “We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the President our principles on government surveillance that we released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform.”

Have you ever heard two more self-serving, mealy-mouthed, cowardly statements? These words were, supposedly, the best they could come up with, to discuss the most controversial issue that has been addressed in the past year? The White House’s statement is a masterful eye-fuck, that says NOTHING…. including the grammatical error created by a misspelling. It said NOTHING significant regarding the security breaches, not even to deny wrongdoing…. they pretty effectively ignored the whole question put to them, with one minor throwaway statement at the last line, that their “input” would be “considered”, after the President “listened to the group’s concerns”, along with the input of “outside stakeholders”…..

That last phrase is the most disturbing…. WHO are they referring to when they say “outside stakeholders”…. Does that refer to other countries, and the spying they’ve been doing on their leaders? Or is that US, the American public, on whom they’ve continued to spy and mine data, despite the obvious concerns the public has over this….  Are WE the ‘outside stakeholders’?….. Oh, right, we’re supposed to be soothed and reassured by their insistence that they are performing a “review of signals intelligence programs”…. Sure they are…. they’re also grooming that herd of pigs to fly, probably planning to have them take off from the White House lawn, I suppose….

These tech “giants” did NOT act in our best interests by making such a namby-pamby statement of purpose; they should have played hard ball with Obama…. but, he figures he’s got them over a barrel, because all he has to do is reveal how much those same companies have been cooperating with all the illegal, unconstitutional activities being carried on by our government, giving up the data before they were even asked to do so…. They only started making noise AFTER Mr. Snowden released all the stuff that is so embarrassing to the talking heads….

Yesterday, I mentioned how those who live life with less than the average amount of IQ points have a tendency to throw out the facts when they don’t fit the theory they favor…. and this is a perfect example of it…. The politicians in Washington aren’t mad because they were breaking the law; they’re mad because they got caught at it. They’re also still doing it, in spite of all the obvious disapproval from the public….They KNOW we don’t want them to do it, but,they know what is best for us, right? They believe that, so they just go on ignoring the Constitution, and taking away more and more of the civil rights we have heretofore enjoyed….. because nobody is stopping them, ffolkes….. We are, as I’ve said before, going to hell in a hand basket, and we have no one but ourselves to blame for it….

“Man is not disturbed about things, but by his opinion about things.” — Epictetus
_____________________________

This poem has long been one of my favorites, as it states exactly how I feel about the subject of discussion, i.e., honor, or, as they say in England, honour…. As with any true classical poem, no further adornment is necessary….

To Lucasta, Going To The Wars

Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee (Dear) so much,
Lov’d I not Honour more.

~~ Richard Lovelace ~~

_____________________________

Today’s rant, above the poem, got me going pretty good; I’m still full of the angst needed to pull it off with passion…. It just pisses me off SO MUCH when these people ABUSE the power that we give them when we elect them… It also pisses me off that we continue to elect them, time after time, when it has become so patently clear that NONE of them have our interests at heart…. NONE of them.

They’re all pursuing some personal agenda, often one that is only acceptable to a tiny portion of the public, but they don’t care, as long as they can continue to rob the public treasury at will, and not have to suffer any significant consequences for lying in public, for cheating their constituents, or for actively harming their own people…. In fact, they often get rewarded for just those things….

I’m so incensed at this point, I want to bite one of them…. which is always a good sign, telling me it’s time to start gathering pearls for an old-school format, to give me the space to pull myself down from the heights of black, hot, anger, back into the lower, calmer realms of cool reason…. Let’s see if Smart Bee can find something to ease me through this emotional crisis, once again….

“A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.” — Eric Hoffer

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.” — Cicero

“Free people, remember this maxim: We may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.” — Rousseau

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one  spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels.  For it  is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed,  and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is  to be stopped at all.” — H. L. Mencken

“Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us:  we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.” — Octavio Paz

“One of the most perverse things about the universe is that it doesn’t care what you believe.” — Smart Bee

The Journey is the Reward,
Not the Destination.

— Zen Koan

You gotta love when a plan comes together…. If, after considering the wisdom entailed in the first six aphorisms,  you consider the last koan as an answer to the question, “How do I live a happy life?”, all will be well in your world, as it will be in mine…. Well, the odds are improved, at the very least….
_____________________________

Well, that was something of an ordeal…. let’s see how it turned out today…. I am reluctant, at this point, to make any hard and fast judgments as to quality, but, I can definitely pronounce this as done…. or finished, or whatever concluding description you’d care to use…. The point is, I’m done with it, so, it’s done…. See ya tomorrow…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

It’s too late for the pilot program; use the spare shuttlecraft….

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3

Ffolkes,

So much for consistency…. It’s 0530 in the AM, and I’m up, wondering again how to kill the fear, and begin writing….. I did sleep well, again, but, went to bed at 8 PM, so I’m up early, too, putting myself back on the early morning routine, hopefully…. It’s what I’m used to, and the coffee machine is already set to go off at 5, so, it all works out well, as long as I’ve done my part, and gotten the sleep I need…. Of late, that has been the easy part, now I’ll see how I can do at regulating it…

I’m wondering though, just how much y’all want to hear about my early morning sleeping habits…. I’ve a feeling that may just be the final straw for some, crossing over the line of personal chattiness into intimacy, which is going too far, inarguably….. It’s a conundrum I’ve noted lately, that blogging tends to loosen one’s tongue about personal information, giving away what is probably too much for the internet…. I’m not particularly vulnerable, myself, but, for many, giving up too much can lead to issues with unscrupulous individuals, who have learned how to use the internet to troll for victims, for robbery, theft, sexual crimes, or whatever else the dark side of human nature comes up with to victimize another human….

As I said, I’m not as vulnerable as some might be, since I AM a male, and trained to deal with that sort of people, by experience…. but, there are many who are not so protected by experience, or by being protected by others…. Older women, or men, who cannot think as fast as they used to, can become the victims of fast talking scam artists, who get them to give up their address, then rob them, or use their information to steal their bank accounts, or other types of identity theft…. Young women and/or children can be subject to sexual predators, who find their victims online by pretending to be a safe individual, of their own age…. I often consider answering such trolls, and meeting them, to give THEM a taste of the fear they engender in their victims…..

Sadly, computers have opened up an entire new subset of crimes, ones that are perpetrated online, or are carried out using information obtained online by technically savvy criminals…. and this time, I’m NOT talking about the government, even though I regard their spying to be just as criminal as identity theft, or rape, or any other crime where the victim is harmed by their actions….. No, there are plenty of criminals out there who DON’T wear suits and ties, and who don’t talk on TV…. the one’s on TV are just the legally sanctioned criminals; they’ve been approved by the voters to steal from them as needed….

Is that a rant? Can I count that? If so, I can leave off finding one for a later section…. I’ll check with the umpires…. In the meantime, I think I’ve managed to get enough down to cal this a legal intro, don’t you? Four full paragraphs, full of next to nothing, should qualify…. I got CLOSE to an actual subject, but, never really got fully engaged in discussing it, so it’s good for an intro, and meets all the other ridiculous standards they apply, though even they can’t tell me…. It’s gotten so I don’t much care, as long as they just stamp my stuff as approved, and move on down the line…. which is where we need to get to….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“I’ve reached that age when a good day is one when you get up and nothing hurts.” — H. Martin
_____________________________

So far, it’s a good day…. As such, we’ll treat it as if it were a real day, just like any other…. we shall go forth, and gather pearls, to be spread out for the enjoyment of our Gentle Readers, such as they are, with love and generosity our only motivation…. Like the Dalai Lama said, boys and girls, “Our purpose in this life is to help one another, and if we cannot help, at least do no harm.”…. I like that…..

“I find your faith in reality rather amusing.” — gigoid

“In an insane society, the sane man must appear insane.” — Spock

“Advise is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least.” — Lord Chesterfield

“One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger’s breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger.” — Diogenes Laertius (c. 200 AD) — Diogenes, vi

Dennis, Nell, Edna, Leon, Nedra, Anita, Rolf, Nora, Alice, Carol, Leo, Jane, Reed, Dena, Dale, Basil, Rae, Penny, Lana, Dave, Denny, Lena, Ida, Bernadette, Ben, Ray, Lila, Nina, Jo, Ira, Mara, Sara, Mario, Jan, Ina, Lily, Arne, Betty, Dan, Reba, Diane, Lynn, Ed, Eva, Dana, Lynne, Pearl, Isabel, Ada, Ned,  Dee, Rena, Joel, Lora, Cecil, Aaron, Flora, Tina, Arden, Noel, and Ellen sinned. — Smart Bee sez…

“Guy Fawkes was the sanest man who ever went into the Houses of Parliament – and look what happened to him.” — Smart Bee

“‘But he hasn’t got any clothes on,’ a little boy said.” — from The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen

Some days, this process works better than others, even if the keyboard is getting so old the space bar sticks…. Today, it worked better…. Just so you are aware of it…. this is a very, very good pearl, one that makes a very cogent, and very critical statement of how to approach daily living in a way so as to almost guarantee, if not success, then contentment, or satisfaction, at the very least….. I swear!….. Trust me!….
_____________________________

I am becoming more and more enamored of the poetry of this man…. Everything I’ve seen of what he wrote has that unmistakable feeling of being REAL…. which, to me, is irresistible…..

The Aliens

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.
you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.
but I am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one
of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them
but they are
there
and I am
here.

~~ Charles Bukowski ~~

_____________________________

I’m feeling more than just a little lazy, and, at the same time, a bit ambitious…. so, I’ll resort to cheating, and pull a bit of both out of the archives…. Here are TWO rants, one a politirant on the Second Amendment, and a religirant, both written way back in March of 2012, in the same Pearl… Both are pretty good, and both are still valid, in terms of the current world’s status on both these arenas of public concern…. So, enjoy this rather long pair of treats from the past…. I did….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  — Romans 12:1

“Reasonable service”  Hmm…. it seems to me that whoever wrote this should probably turn in his divine channeling papers, because all of his sense of proportion and believability just went flying out the window when this got put onto parchment back in the day. I mean, give me a break!  “your bodies a living sacrifice” is “reasonable service”.  Well, if you have the kind of mind that will accept that at face value, then I am compelled by compassion, fueled only by a deep desire to help my fellow man, to inform you of a special deal, a deal you won’t be able to pass up….

That’s right, folks (note the spelling, please), today only, you too can be the envy of your neighbors, the hero of the housing tract, the cock o’the walk, as it were. Today, and today only (we already have our ticket for the bus to Bakersfield leaving at midnight….)  you can join those millions of people have taken advantage of this EXCLUSIVE OFFER! For the next few minutes our operators will be taking orders for this deal of a lifetime, C.O.D only; no checks, no credit, no problem. What, you may ask, could be so wonderful, so glamorous, so blatantly gluttonous that EVERYONE wants one?

Well, I’ll tell you…. how would you feel to know that, thanks to your own good sense, and the wonders of human ingenuity, you were the first in your area to be the proud owner of…. wait for it….  your own, exclusive jar, filled to the brim, with GOD’s OWN ETERNAL LOVE! That’s right, you heard me correctly. For the insanely low price we are asking, you’ll have to agree that we are practically giving away this priceless commodity; you won’t find this deal matched anywhere.

What is this essentially negligible price, you ask? Just how crazy are these guys? We’re pretty cagey, er, crazy, that’s for sure. Today only, we are asking for a mere lifetime, and a mere 75% eternal, commitment of your entire soul, and the mineral and artistic rights to your firstborn child, whether a son or daughter. That’s right! An entire mason jar, filled to the brim with the priceless boon of God’s own eternal love, for the almost unnoticeable price we are seeking, would normally run you not only what we have asked, but also want you to throw in your wife,  guarantee the rest of your children’s yearly incomes for life, and toss in a few succeeding generations as well. But today, and today only, you too can join those exclusive few who are privileged to have their very own centerpiece for the family altar, for the bargain price of one soul, and consumer rights on a child.

How can you lose? And how can you afford to pass up this opportunity to advance your standing in the eyes of your peers, as well as the eyes of God?  You can’t, so pony up, sucker!…. Hahahahahahahahahaahahahaha!….  Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to splatter….
___________________________________

“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia’, the ‘security’ of the nation, and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms’, our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country.  For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.” — April, 1960 (Then) Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)

Jack Kennedy was a pretty smart guy; after all, he did graduate from Harvard Law. Admittedly, he was not exactly the most ethical bulb in the box, but he had his head screwed on his shoulders fairly solidly, and had the unusual political stance of actually wanting the American people to have a decent chance at what they deserve, and are promised by our form of government, i.e., a shot at “the pursuit of happiness”….. However, in this statement, he makes an unwarranted and dangerous assumption, to wit: “it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation.”  Jack was an optimist…. and as is often the case, the pessimists were closer to right on this one….

Our rights are in imminent and clear danger of being abrogated, permanently. This is an indisputable fact. I have pictures, as well as copious documentation, of their own documents of erasure. This kind of fact is also provided with further partial proof of its truth by the reaction of those responsible for this subtle attack on our legacy of freedom, who, when confronted with knowledge of their intent, immediately accuse the confronting entity of “spreading communist (oops, I guess today they would now use the ubiquitous “terrorist”) propaganda”, or “attacking the principles of freedom” or my favorite complete lie, “you’re threatening our national security.”

It would be somewhat amusing, if it weren’t so dangerously disgusting…. I mean, do they really expect the American people to sit around and do NOTHING?  I kind of hope they do believe that…. it will be then a bigger surprise to them, when the American people stand up, point their guns at the heads of these idiots, walk back into the voting booths, and take their rights back, from the Democrats AND the Republicans, who are all arguably insane…. call me treasonous if you will; I call it patriotism, of the first water….

“Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; and George the Third [“Treason!” cried the Speaker] – may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.” — Patrick Henry (1736-1799) — Speech in the Virginia Convention, 1765

(In today’s scenario, substitute, George the Shrub and Shrub II for George III)

“You can lead a yak to water but you can’t teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke.” — Opus
_____________________________

Well, that’s no doubt enough, for even the most dedicated reader….. If they can’t find something to like in this mess, they won’t be finding it at all, at all…. Let’s see if it flies like a pig, or like a pigeon….

I’ll be damned! (Well, there’s little doubt of that, but, you know what I mean….) It actually flies, but, more like a bumblebee than anything else! By that, I mean, it’s aerodynamically unsound, not fit or designed for flight, but, hey, there it goes, trundling off, wings a-buzzing, wending it’s clumsy but effective path through the sky from place to place, never getting lost, and always coming home drunk, covered with pollen from all the flowers it’s been flirting with…. In short, it’s ugly, it’s a dog, but, it flies…. badly, but, it flies….  and, so, dear Gentle Reader, does this Pearl, because I’m shoving it out of the tree to sink or swim on its own…. Y’all can yell at me tomorrow, okay?  See ya…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

Fighting dogma is EVERYBODY’S responsibility…. Only YOU can fight the forest fires of ignorance, with the cool water of Reason!….

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2

Ffolkes,

Hidden from sight by a looming, ominous hedge, mellifluous sounds of Mozart, played expertly on a well-tuned piano, escaped into the quickening night air, tossed away in the gentle breeze blowing from the woods beyond the hedge. Soft sounds of talk and laughter joined the music, filling in the picture of genteel life in the country.

As the silent man, dressed all in black, turned around the hedge, the party came into view; women in floating, soft-colored dresses and large floppy hats, men in leisure suits, with pale pink shirts, and the occasional short sleeve. White jacketed servers, unobtrusive, wound their way  between the formally clad attendees, offering hors d’oeuvre, or champagne in elegant flutes….

The sound of the Uzi’s safety release, followed instantly by the unmistakeable sound of the weapon being cocked, cut sharply across the conversation and music, stunning all into silence, until the man’s voice rang out, clear as a bell, ” Okay, everyone, strip!”…..

Damn! I am SO GLAD that is over! I started to write it, and it started to change on me, turning into the most boring piece of crap I’ve ever had the temerity to put on paper (metaphorically, of course….) I suppose it’s alright, from a technical standpoint…. that was the problem….. I wrote it, then went through it, cleaning it up, polishing it, making it flow….. until I realized what a pile of shit it really was….

By then, of course, my anal-obsessive nature had hold of me, and I had to finish it…. But, it’s over now, and I can go on to something perhaps less classy, but way more comfortable…. What a cock-up! And I hope I’m getting the meaning right there…. it SOUNDS right for the occasion, but, if any of my British or Euro friends have any idea of correct usage, I’d appreciate a head’s-up on that…. Thanks in advance for that….

This is, so far, a unique Pearl…. in one way only, so far, but, it remains to be seen as to whether that changes, or not. It’s unique because of the time it’s being created, which is well past any stretch of normalcy for me; it’s after 8 AM, almost 8:30, and I slept until 0749, meaning I got another nine hours of sleep last night, again….. This is such a new event, I’m not even going to try to analyze it at all, I’m just going with the flow, even if it is a very strange flow thus far…. I have lots of energy, in a relative sense, but, still little to do with it other than put it into this…. a good thing, for the most part, but, a bit limiting in other ways. I like to be active, and this getting old, in the sense of it limiting my ability to get around easily, is keeping me down more often than I’d like. I’m dithering aren’t I?

I can feel it…. I’m starting to dither, flipping from one subject to another, in my head, so fast that I can’t keep up, and neither can reality…. It gets a little confusing at times, but, sometimes, some of my best stuff gets done when this happens…. It’s a matter of balancing the creative flow of ideas that are thundering down, like a waterfall over the edge of my mind, with some intense, yet subtle, mind-control techniques, hidden, but effective,  that allow me to surf along the edge of the water, letting it take me wherever it wishes to go…. Since I’ve blathered again for long enough to suit the authorities who give a shit about that sort of thing, we can get on with today’s dive, late as it may be in getting started…..

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds”

— e.e. cummings
_____________________________

“Late, I’m late, for a very important date…” — The White Rabbit

This could very well become the iconic statement for today’s post, were we at all interested in appointing one…. Since we are not, I’ll just explain that starting this now has given me the heebie jeebies, and it could affect what comes after…. just so’s you know, okay?…. I’m going to go right into another pearl now, as I think it would be in all of our best interests to keep moving, and hope we can get out of here without any serious injury…. This way, ffolkes, and for heaven’s sake, stay together!…. Whatever you do, stay on the path!….

“Vivid words hook misquotes in the mind.” — Keyes’ Rules of Misquotation, Axiom 1, Corollary 1A

Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

— Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) — The Character of a Happy Life

“Time and trouble will contain an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.” — Dorothy Sayers

“Gentleman: A man who knows how to play bagpipes — and refrains.” — Fred Tart

“Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.” — Albert Einstein

“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.” — William Saroyan

“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life wouldn’t you say?” — James T. Kirk, “The Wrath of Khan,”  stardate 8130.3.

Sorry about using J.T. in the ending…. if you wish, attribute the line to the screenwriter who wrote it for the movie, which, as we all know, is a cult classic for the competition between Kirk and Khan to see which could sustain the stiffest acting pose throughout the movie…. “Khan! Khan!….” It’s really kind of cool, with both of them vying to be the more convincing Macbeth, while playing characters in a science fiction space opera….

The line, nonetheless, is the perfect ending to what turned into a fairly decent pearl…. What, you weren’t paying attention? Ah…. Well, your loss…. though there is no charge for going back to read them again, should you so choose… Just don’t let the one by Ms. Sayers throw you off…. it fits, if you’re flexible enough…. If not, well, just try to keep up, we’re running late, as might be expected today….
_____________________________

Yep….. ’tis, indeed….

Shoes

when you’re young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you’re old
it’s just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.

~~ Charles Bukowski ~~

_____________________________

I don’t care what the contract says, it’s my blog, and I can change things around if I want….. Anyone who doesn’t like that, well, they can walk back to the main office, and welcome… I’m going old-school again for this section, for two reasons…. One, I want to….. any questions, or problems with that? Good…. Second, it will end the agony sooner….

Whoa, wait a minute, no need to knock me over in your enthusiasm…. I get the picture now…. the sooner, the better, eh? Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, I guess I have no alternative but to carry on with what consensual reality demands, which is a speedy end to this, yes?….. Besides, I don’t feel up to ranting, and the BRC has been suspiciously quiet in the last few days…. I guess the cold weather is slowing everyone down right now…. but, not Smart Bee, thankfully…..

“Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.” — Robert A. Heinlein

On a huge hill,
Cragged & steep, Truth stands,
and hee that will Reach her,
about must, and about must goe;
And what the hill’s suddenness resists, winne so.

— John Donne

“We judge individual man and women as we do nations and races–by the character of their achievement and by their achievement of character.” — Edward Abbey

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.

— William Butler Yeats

“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street?  A rather good question to ask–particularly in the Twilight Zone.” — Rod Serling

“Always store beer in a dark place.” — Lazarus Long

“The way to keep you from becoming foolish is to never think you are clever.” — Smart Bee

Well, I tried, and that’s the important thing, isn’t it? I keep hoping so…. Besides, no animals were hurt, or used for testing without their permission, during the filming of this commercial…. unless, of course, Eddie’s been losing at the track again…. but, that hasn’t happened for a long time, and he’s on vacation, anyway….
_____________________________

It’s probably best if, at this point, I DON’T make any moral or ethical judgments; I’ll just read it, and weep….. I think I’m going to pass on the weeping, because, it ain’t too bad…. It’s good enough to suit MY standards, for sure and for certain, so, we all know what that means…. Which also means, bye bye, then…. until tomorrow….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

Moments of intentional rapture, guaranteed….

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Reply

Ffolkes,

Whether we speak metaphorically, or realistically, I’m screwed. Well, maybe not all the way screwed, but well-pinched, as it were, by the nearness of the approaching deadlines….. Yep, deadlines, those horrible self-drawn handcuffs of steel we voluntarily apply to ourselves, to play hell with our heads and hearts during the already busy holidays.

For me, it means the deadline of my son’s birthday, which falls ahead of Christmas by a week, but shall forever remain separate, by decree, and justifiably so. No, no worries here about the actual date, I’ve always known that’s coming…. it’s not knowing what to get this time that is causing the issue….

My son is no longer a boy, so the latest toys aren’t going to cut it; I know he doesn’t have much time for Xbox or other games right now, not with two or three jobs to get to, and a boy to raise, and I don’t know what his current reading habits are like, so I don’t know if he’ll like a book, if I get one…. I’ve never had this trouble for him, before, but, then, I’ve been totally unable to buy gifts at this time of year, for several years, so actually having to think about it is sort of new, too…

Oh well, I know I’ll end up using my same old method, of going to a store with a variety of stuff, and wandering around until I see the right thing….It always seems to work, and they always like what I find, so, I’ll go with that, and hope for the best…. As I believe I said, and if not, am now saying, it’s nice to be able to think about buying a gift without a feeling of panic or depression, which was the case for three or four years running….

It’s funny, too, how my income, now, at retirement, is set at a level well above where it was for much of my working career… That isn’t a complaint, for sure, as I need it now more than ever, what with the medical expenses that I can expect to climb steadily over time….. it’s merely a surprise, to see that I planned better than I knew…. No telling how well off I might have been, had someone actually TOLD me about this getting old business… but, hey, none of us got that memo, and who among us would have paid attention to it, anyway?….. I know for a fact that, until I turned 35 or so, I was completely invulnerable…. or, so I thought…

As I am well aware, now, I’m not anything of the sort, the proof of which I live with on a daily basis…. and life goes on, as it does for all of us…. Since I’ve already meandered and blathered for a sufficient amount of time and space, we’ll be nice, and go on to other events, which will probably be a lot more entertaining than this pile of dross…. I can’t even bring myself to call it drivel, as it doesn’t quite make it there, either….

Oh well, I should have known all this sleep would have some kind of effect on things… I just thought that effect MIGHT be positive…. Hope springs eternal, I suppose, only to be crushed again…. SIGH…. Damn that Murphy, anyway…. Since going back to bed is out of the question, I may as well go for a dive….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.” — Herodotus

Sometimes, we know it quite well….
_____________________________

Creating Pearls of Virtual Wisdom is not as easy as it may appear from the outside… This, though a truism, is not something I can explain to y’all, not by using words…. To really understand the process, it must be experienced…. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can tell you enough to get it to work for you, and I don’t know if just having you tag along as I do it is going to quite give the correct information, either…. It’s quite the conundrum, and we are thankful to God for giving it to us to solve….

As you may know, if you spend time hanging around here much, the last statement was NOT serious, as we don’t waste a lot of time around here giving thanks to imaginary figures; we find that to be less productive than the regular application of rational thought…. No, it was a just a joke, only there to see if y’all were paying attention this morning…. Since you were, mostly, I can get on with this….

This one, as I was getting around to saying above, before I decided to go wonky on you with the test mode, will be an odd pearl, gathered at different periods of time over a couple of days, looking for just the right ones to make the point at which I’m pointing… Let’s see how it came out, after all my work…

“The artist’s job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live….” — Edward Abbey

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.” — Albert Einstein

“If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture – that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.” — Edward Abbey

“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” — P.J. O’Rourke

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.

— John Dryden (1631-1700) — Aurengzebe, Act iv, Sc. 1

“Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.” — Publius Syrus

“For some Reason, reality is an illusion.” — Smart Bee

Hmm… I have the feeling I could have just used my index finger, and been done with it…. Oh, well, onward….
_____________________________

Sometimes, poetry hides itself inside another piece of literature…. Here is a poem, stuck inside a chant from an Indian tribe; without Googling, I’ll assume it came from the either the eighteenth, or the nineteenth century, during the time when Europeans and New World Indians were first meeting, culture to culture…. The poem I see in this describes a world view that indicates a people whose moral and ethical degree of advancement was obviously much greater than the European culture against which it came into conflict…..

The poor white devils couldn’t begin to understand, much less appreciate,  the finer sentiments of these children of nature…. so they had to destroy them…. For several hundred years now, this has been the typical reaction of most Caucasian cultures to societies different than their own…. The saddest part is that the Makah Indians, if they were as gentle as their words would indicate, probably forgave them… which I cannot do….

Do not stand by my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am a diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush.
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand by my grave and cry.
I am not there… I did not die.

 — Song of the Makah Indians


Smart Bee had originally listed this as a ‘prayer’ of the Indians, but, I don’t believe it was meant as such, as much as it was a song, one that their children sang, to learn about what their people believed, not to indoctrinate them with dogma, or with the useless memorization of lists of sins…..
_____________________________

Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse.  Software said: “You are the Yin and I am the Yang.  If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast sums of money.”  And so the pair set forth together, thinking to conquer the world.

Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick.  Firmware said to them: “The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang.  It is silent and still as a pool of water.  It does not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence.  It does not seeks fortune, for it is complete within itself.  It exists beyond space and time.”

Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.  — Geoffrey James, “The Tao of Programming”

This koan reminds me of the tale of how the guard at the city gate prevented Lao Tzu from leaving the city until he had written down the 88 verses of the Tao Teh Ching…. It also reminds me that too much is too much, and I should just let the story teach the lesson, without any comment… So, I will… Just read the above, ffolkes, and think on it a while… You’re bound to get something good from doing so, even if it’s only a few moments of quiet contemplation….

“The truth is always the strongest argument.” — Sophocles (496-406 BC) — Phaedra, Frag. 737
_____________________________

As I awoke this morning, I thought I was hallucinating; the clock read 0619, a time I have not seen from bed for a very long time. I even felt some mild anxiety at getting a Pearl done in good time, but, I should know by now they’ll get done when they’re done, and not before…. no matter how late I sleep. It seems, also, that I’m right, because, hey, here we are at the end, and I think it’s done…. Let me see just how done it is….

I’d say that’s done, and done fairly well, for all its assumed gravity, and in direct contrast to the rather pathetic plea for understanding that underlies the entire set of assertions and tentative conclusions…. In short, I think it will do, as long as I don’t think about it too much…. I’m going with that, anyway, even if it IS the wrong decision…. I’ve been wrong before, haven’t I?….. I know I have…. See ya…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

Tales of rabbits running, and thyme….

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Ffolkes,

    I realized, at one point, while going over yesterday’s post, that my diatribe in the intro section, regarding some theoretical might-have-beens for one of our former POTUS’s, may conceivably have sounded as if I were disparaging, by stereotyping, “those kind of guys”, when I was speaking of GWB Jr, aka, Shrub, Jr….. That would be an erroneous conclusion, completely against the grain of my actual beliefs, and totally in opposition to the point I was making about the shrub’s latency…

    In that respect, I meant only to suggest that HE, Mr. Shrub, Jr., would have been much better off had he been allowed to explore that, shall we say, more ethically and/or morally evolved side of his personality…. which, sadly, also does not mention how much better off we all would have been, had that series of unlikely events have taken place…. I wanted to make that perfectly clear, as I MUCH  prefer the politics and personalities I find in the gay community over those I find in the Republican Party, as a rule…. Actually, I’d say it’s more like a natural law than a rule, as I’ve yet to meet a Republican I liked very much, and I generally enjoy ALL the gay and/or transgender ffolkes I meet…. though I’m sure they produce their share of assholes, too… We all take our turn at that….

    I started this apologia yesterday, at the point in time when I realized what I had done, so it has usurped my usual beginning routine…. which fits right in with the rest of the day’s events thus far…. I arose at almost 6 AM, the latest hour I’ve arisen in the course of many blue moons, and a good indicator that my new medication regime for sleeping is effective. I’m getting a handle on the amount of medication (cannabis….) I need to consume, as well as getting to understand how long prior to the time I want to go out for the night I need to consume it, so for the past five nights, I’ve gone to bed at a relatively normal hour, and gotten up eight to nine hours later, refreshed and reasonably recharged….. It’s a real treat, believe me, after many years of interrupted sleeping…. I do wake up a bit confused, though, as my mind doesn’t understand why I was asleep so long….

    All of the routines I’m now developing are new, so it may take some time to regularize them; bear with me until then, if you will, and give me some slack…. more than you’ve already given me over time, as you’ve watched me go through all the contortions that my particular brand of madness makes me display so ardently….. I know it can be difficult to see a human being going through some of this, but, just toughen up, ffolkes, it’s all in a good cause, as  long as the subscription papers got signed for the turning over of all the profits to the charity funds I picked…. Of course, that’s assuming we can ever show a profit, an event unlikely to happen in this lifetime, as I’m making no effort to do so…. So there….

    Not sure why the irritability is there, but, hey, I’ve been in stranger moods, and still gotten a Pearl done…. It’s probably just some left over confusion from waking up, a natural response to new routines, and a natural flip, to turn over the confusion to the curmudgeon in me, and let it out as grumpiness…. Every body needs to practice their skills, eh?…. Even if the only thing we’re going to do is go for a dive, in familiar waters…..

    Shall we Pearl?…. Below you will find a quote, one of my all-time favorites, but, sadly, one I have always attributed incorrectly, to the wrong author…. I had always thought this came from Mahatma Gandhi, in one of his gentle moments of sardonicism…. but, I was wrong, so, I offer it here with the correct author given credit….

“Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.” — George Bernard Shaw
_____________________________

    I’m not up to a rant today, ffolkes, even though I see by the news that the idiots are loose out there, even on a Sunday…. But, they’re talking about the budget, and the economy, and NOTHING is more upsetting to me than that…. They all talk just as if there were something they could do that would have some effect on the economy, when it is perfectly clear to even the most thick-headed that there is not a damn thing to be done… ANYTHING they do is the wrong thing, and it is something they will never understand, as it is beyond their capability….. So, rather than stand around and point out the obvious bleeding from the head wounds they give each other, pounding on a wall that won’t move, I’ll put together an old-school style pearl, to show the same derisive qualities, but with a bit of panache, and, hopefully, humor…. Let’s see if SB will cooperate today….

“The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.” — Sir Thomas Browne

“Life is Not Fair!  Not today, Not tomorrow, Not ever!  Get used to it!” — Smart Bee

“Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.” — Anton Chekhov

“Difficulties are things that show what men are.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — Discourses, Book i, Chap. xxiv

“It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth.” — Oscar Wilde

“He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.” — Aristotle

Between those who use their neighbors, and those who use a cane.
Between those in constant power, and those in constant pain.
Between those who run to evil, and those who cannot run.
Tell me which ones are the cripples, and which ones touch the sun.

 — Ceili’s Muse “What you do with what you’ve got”
_____________________________

    I know a poet is special when what they’ve written speaks to me as if I were standing next to them, watching them as they wrote the poem…. All of this man’s poems do that for me…. He is very, very real, and powerful, especially when he reveals the vulnerability we all feel sometimes…..

Bluebird

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

~~ Charles Bukowski ~~

_____________________________

    When I began to put this section together, my intent was a bit more dignified than the end result might indicate….. But, I have no regrets at all over this one, as it happened to turn out to be rather a good little pearly mini-rant, with some fairly nice shots taken, and some good advice delivered…. If nothing else, it gives us all a chance to think about just how much it’s going to cost me to get the psychiatric help I need…. until we remember, it’s all free, if you’re already insane!…..

    No, really, ffolkes, this one actually IS a good pearl, with all the right stuff to take someone in the right frame of mind right over into patriotic fervor, or possibly, an outbreak of common sense, or even random compassion…. One never knows with these pearls, you know, they can be pretty unpredictable in their effect on some ffolkes…. and even more so on other folks….

“It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives…  When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force.  When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.” — Dorothy Thompson, American journalist, author (1894-1961)

“Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the _real_ object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?” — Patrick Henry

“A promise must never be broken.” — Alexander Hamilton

“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?” — Thomas Jefferson,  “Notes on Virginia”

“A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.” — Ramsey Clark

“All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes.  For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: “Where else are you going to read the paper?  Outside?  What if it rains?” — Dave Barry, “Sweating Out Taxes”

“America … just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.” — Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail”
_____________________________

    There are mornings when I’m uncertain whether or not I really should be doing this…. Then, I read it, and it’s all okay again…. Let’s see if that works today….. Well, I won’t take the high road, and insist that this is all well-intentioned, and should therefore be pardoned…. Nor will I take the low road, and say it is so poor and lacking in content it should be ignored…. for in truth, it is neither one of those, but, almost a proper Pearl, in almost every sense… I’m not certain how it came out that way, but, I’ll take it…. and see you tomorrow, considering myself fortunate to be able to run away without guilt, “an have harmed none”…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
   and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

We can save time by cross stitching the zippers….

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Ffolkes,

My writing schedule is a real mess, now that I’m actually sleeping a relatively normal number of hours….. I’m not sure what to do with nine hours of sleep every day; I don’t remember the last time it happened, especially not three or four days in a row…. One might suspect me of cheating somehow, but, how does one do that? How do you cheat to get some sleep? It seems to me that whatever means one might resort to would be legal means, given the very personal, and very critical nature of the issue. Even if there were some kind of legal issues involved, I don’t think I, or anyone else who has the same issue, would waste any of my time caring about getting in trouble over it…. As I heard in a movie recently, bring it on….

Oh, wait, no that was a POTUS who said that, not a cheerleader in a movie…. Well, she said it too, but, ….. never mind…. It was a bit childish, yes, and completely inappropriate, coming from our nation’s highest elected official, especially given the assumed dignity that is supposed to go with the office of the presidency…. Unfortunately, it’s sad, but true, that particular POTUS really had no business ever becoming one anyway; it was only his dad’s extreme skills at clandestine cheating that got him elected, both times…. but, we’re not going to go there today….

That’s a rant of an entirely different color, and we don’t have any rainbow bridles on hand today…. Did you ever get that from him? Did he, you know, Shrub Jr., did he ever strike you as well, kind of gay? He always reminded me of one of those old guys on Polk and Turk in SF, new to the scene, but determined to make up for all the lost years in the closet….. He always had that look in his eye, you know, and that silly little grin? The shit-eating, good-old-boys grin, just among buddies, y’know?…. Like he’s always wanted to join the scene, but, daddy would never give him enough room to stray that way…. A prancer, he looks like a prancer, that’s what he is, one of those who would dance around, waving a champagne bottle, wearing nothing but his cowboy hat and boots, white briefs, and a big shit-eating grin….

Okay, side issue there, sorry…. but, it’s true…. He always did remind me of one of those guys, you know?…. Okay, onward…. Of course, now that we’ve decided to move on, that leaves the very important question of WHERE to move on unanswered in any real way….. Personally, I think we should go go the pirate route, but, there are always a number of injuries when we use that methodology, and I’m low on paper tape for bandages. We could go with the Bossa Nova style we just got delivered yesterday…. No, wait, it isn’t all unpacked yet, and my zoot suit isn’t pressed…. Hmm. Oh hell, I suppose we’re just going to have to resort to the tried and true number seven…. I didn’t want to have to do that, but, hey, parts is parts, right?….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“Don’t follow in my footsteps. I think I stepped in something.” — Smart Bee
_____________________________

Coming soon to a section near you!….. A grouping of pearls, especially designed and gathered for your personal delectation, with the intent, as always, to further increase your own growing collection of perspicacious elements of philosophical rationale, useful in many ways, for completing your homework, for filling the space in the front of your shoes, or for the bottom of that bird-cage… Created with you in mind, if not always in our hearts…Here now, from the makers of John Daniel’s finest breakfast products, happily if foolishly imbibed, then dutifully processed, by the organic, yet oddly technical, highly-trained consumer you see before you now… Your daily pearls of virtual wisdom, fresh from their own oysters…..

(No, I’m not really having Whiskey for Breakfast, though that IS an event known to have happened in the dim, dark past…. Just foolin’ around, in a sort of literary sense, Heyoka style… Never mind, it’ll never work now…. here, take the pearls, at least they won’t explode…. I think….)

“Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a congressperson can.” — Smart Bee

* Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO
* Many newspapers feature “JUMBLE”
* Hourly motel rates
* Vast majority of Elvis movies made here
* Didn’t just give up right away during World War II like some countries we could mention
* Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies
* Our well-behaved golf professionals
* Fabulous babes coast to coast

— David Letterman’s “Things we can be proud of as Americans”

“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.  It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.” — H. L. Mencken

“Ideology…is an instrument of power;  a defense mechanism against information; a pretext for eluding moral constraints in doing or approving evil with a clean conscience; and finally, a way of banning the criterion of experience, that is, of completely eliminating or indefinitely postponing the pragmatic criteria of success and failure.” — Jean-Francois Revel

“Control of the dissemination of information (or misinformation) is one of the principal sources of political power. Political power is what the discussion of the Internet is really about, not home-made bombs or pornography.” — Michael Goldsby — Letter to Communications of the ACM, Nov 95

(Or, as gigoid put it, back in 1977, “True power is control of the routes of perception.”…. See “another rant, another time…” I’m sure I’ve talked about this before…. I know I have…. but, I haven’t a clue as to when that might have been…. SIGH…) Okay, two more to round this off so it won’t leave any scar tissue….

“In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.” — Paul Harvey

“Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.” [Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound]. — Smart Bee

Perfect ending….
_____________________________

“I have nothing to declare except my genius.” — Oscar had no qualms in doing so, either…. Fortunately for us all, he wasn’t wrong…..

A Vision

Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone
With no green weight of laurels round his head,
But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan
For sins no bleating victim can atone,
And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.
Girt was he in a garment black and red,
And at his feet I marked a broken stone
Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees.
Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame,
I cried to Beatrice, ‘Who are these? ‘
And she made answer, knowing well each name,
‘AEschylos first, the second Sophokles,
And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’

~~ Oscar Wilde ~~

_____________________________

One thing I can say about myself is that I’m fairly consistent, once I’ve made up my mind about something…. Below is a religirant, an old one, from more than a year ago, whilst I was still in the grip of the near-poverty level lifestyle with which I was familiar for a couple of years…. It’s all done now, but, as you can see from the following, I haven’t changed my mind about certain basic beliefs….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From June 27, 2012:

“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1972)

There are many folks out there who, when reading my material for the first time, might get the impression that I am an atheist, and an anarchist. The stuff I write would tend to give that impression, I have no doubt. But, it really isn’t the case, and just goes to show that not everything is always as it seems….

I’m not an atheist, at least not in a classical sense. I would more accurately be described as agnostic, as I believe strongly in a spiritual component in the universe. But, the very concept of omnipotence, and omniscience, implies that one cannot define God, or whatever entity one considers to be the ultimate authority. A finite mind cannot comprehend an infinite mind; anything we can imagine cannot, by definition, be accurate or complete, as our minds are not infinite in scope.

It could be said that our imagination IS infinite. We can, at the very least, comprehend the concept of infinity, even if we cannot touch it, or see it, or count that high. But, to actually think that what we imagine about God is the same as reality is not only arrogant, it is foolish. Yet a large percentage of the human race not only believes they know what God looks like (ironically, God always looks like the folks who are claiming Him as their deity….), but that they know what He wants. To my way of thinking, this is sheer self-aggrandizement, and unjustifiably arrogant….

I suppose it helps them in dealing with the everyday stresses of life to think that they are special. To think they are beloved of God, and what they do is important to Him. This sense of belonging is important to a lot of folks, due I think, to their own fears about their ability to deal with reality as it exists. It gives them a sense of entitlement, and justifies their actions, no matter how immoral or unethical they may be. It allows them to act upon their impulses without restraint, to lie, to cheat, to steal, all in the name of the Lord. And, if they should happen to feel a tiny shred of guilt about what they are doing to other folks, why, they just confess their sins to Jesus, and all is forgiven!….

Sorry, folks, but I could never buy into the whole scenario, from my earliest days. All of my experience, and all of my reasoning have led me to a different view of reality than what is described by any religion. I have observed the behavior of most people of a religious bent to be, as a rule, hypocritical, cruel, bigoted, racist, and, for the most part, unrelated to any moral or ethical system of any depth. The most religious in society go so far as to threaten violence toward anyone who disagrees with their beliefs, justified by their own self-proclaimed right to spew their hatred on anyone who differs.

I believe in compassion and kindness. I believe in love. I believe in protecting the vulnerable, and helping the less fortunate. I believe in beauty. And, I believe in reality, whatever that may be; it’s purely subjective for the most part. I DON’T believe in the divinity of Jesus, or Buddha, or Lao Tzu, or Mohammad, or any other religious prophet. I don’t believe there is some white haired, bearded old guy sitting on a throne of gold up in the sky somewhere, looking down and getting his pants in a bunch because I didn’t salute his graven image first thing after I got up.

That whole graven image thing, and the idea that God wants, or needs, our worship has always been a thorn in my side. I mean, can’t these zealots understand the irony of worshiping an image of Christ on the cross? Don’t they know that the cross is a graven image? And why would an omnipotent being need MY worship? It makes no sense. None. I cannot imagine of ANY reason for a God to care at all about such petty bullshit; I don’t care to be worshiped, why should He? Having someone act that way toward me makes me uncomfortable, so I can’t see why a God would even want to go there. What purpose does it serve?

Well, one of my computer alarms just went off, and made me realize I was ranting, which I had not started out to do. I think y’all can get the gist of my arguments by this time, and those who are in disagreement with what I’ve written aren’t going to be persuaded away from their long-held delusions by my words, so further soliloquy would be futile.

I’ll just finish by saying this…. until Mankind grows up enough to be able to put aside the crutch of religion, and learns to stand up to reality as it exists, without the delusional imaginary friend to intercede on their behalf with the universe, then our path to extinction will remain clear…. It’s too bad really, because our species shows a lot of promise…. it’s too bad we will never be allowed to explore our limits as an adult species, because we will have killed ourselves off before we ever got out of childhood….
_____________________________

You’re right, I cheated a bit…. I’m an American, sue me…. I don’t currently have the angst and/or outrage necessary for good ranting, so, I went with the archives again…. It saves time proofing, too, as I’ve already been over the old stuff at least twice before it got posted…. Let’s see what kind of overall damage I’ve done today….

It’s a good thing the universe has a lot of hit points…. I hit back fairly hard today. Be that as it may, I think Reality will probably survive, so I’ll just be on my way, doing my part to shore up the dikes of reason against the tide of ignorance…. See ya….

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3

Parabolic patterns, majestically arranged on tiles….

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Ffolkes,

We read of a certain Roman emperor who built a magnificent palace.  In digging the foundation, the workmen discovered a golden sarcophagus ornamented with three circlets, on which were inscribed, “I have expended; I have given; I have kept; I have possessed; I do possess; I have lost; I am punished. What I formerly expended, I have; what I gave away, I have.” — Gesta Romanorum — Tale xvi

I have decided, again, to make a change, of at least a temporary nature…. Here is a beginning pearl for your perusal, one that shows well in the early light, and not merely because it is a tale from old Rome…. those always go over well with the breakfast crowd….. This is also a fine way to show off a very old format for Pearls, from the very Dark Ages, before computers were available to the public, and we all had to write stuff down with real pencils, or one of those other actual writing utensils…. Never mind all that, though, and look at the pearl more closely…. You’ll see that there is actually a real-life lesson in there, just waiting for us to learn it….

Of course, we must then assume one is capable of learning, capable, moreover, of learning such an ethical lesson this early in the day…. Not everyone can, you know…. There are a lot of people who can’t learn ethical lessons at all, but, we try to keep them confined to the political arena where  we can keep better track of them…. Hah! I wish it were that simple…. No, there’s actually a good little parable in the above little tale, all about big fish, little fish, etc., compassionate living, ethics, and the pointlessness of arguing with reality, but, in sooth, I just included it there to show y’all how pearls used to be constructed, back in the days before the digital hegemony became extant…. Can we be done now? Okay….

So, yesterday, I made a really dumb statement, and though that isn’t all that unusual, it IS unusual for me to resort to hyperbole when I’m writing, even when being sardonic, or sarcastic…. Part of the trouble with hyperbole is its unfortunate habit of always coming back to bite later on… Yesterday, I spoke of being one of the richest single men in the world, referring to a fortune in the neighborhood of several hundred million dollars….. which, of course, isn’t anywhere NEAR the richest…. The men and/or women who inhabit THAT short list have fortunes approximating several BILLION dollars, a figure they cannot envision any better than the rest of us, in the final analysis…. nor can they take a single penny more than we can with them wherever any of us are going, after we’re done fooling around on this plane of existence….

There…. now that I’ve cleared up that little misunderstanding, I can honestly say that I’ve completely screwed the pooch, in a manner of speaking…. I’ve written myself into another damn corner, and the only way out is to just bail…. I hate to do that, it gets my cardigan all wrinkled from the dive, and it’s always such a hassle to retie all the knots, and restock all the snacks…. But, it does get us to the next section, without having to go back and do any of this over, and without having to resort to sheepish, apologetic shuffling while you look magnanimous and kindly…. Thanks for THAT!….

Shall we Pearl?…..

“I am ignorant of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance, and therein lies my honour and my reward.” — Kahlil Gibran
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[7/16/89] “I’ve had no indication from home, nor have we picked up any here that they felt that the US economy was going to move towards a recession.” [10/4/91] “The economy is moving in the right direction.” [10/25/91] “I don’t want to buy into the predicate about [the US being in] another recession. I don’t feel that way.”  [10/31/91] The economy’s turned the corner, headed for recovery.”  [11/8/91] I’m not prepared to say we are in a recession.”  [1/4/92] It will not be a deep recession.”  [1/15/92] Look, this economy is in free fall.”  — President George Bush

Perfect, eh? I think this little collection of quotes from the news is an excellent way to demonstrate my point about the lies that politicians tell on a regular basis…. This group of quotes could arguably be reproduced for just about ANY politician alive, and look almost exactly the same, whether the subject is the economy, gun control, foreign policy, the war on (drugs, poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease, cancer, the middle class…. pick one, they’re all current….), or just their own cupidity…. It’s clear from each and every of the above statements, at each and every time he was queried, this man had absolutely no clue as to what was actually going on with the economy…. and had no intention of ever admitting any such thing….

To be honest, I don’t expect him to have a clue about the economy….. That is a subject of which no one alive has any real understanding; the economy of this nation, and of the world at large, is too big, too astronomically huge and amorphous, with so much inertia inherent in its workings, the effects of ANY kind of cause are delayed, and perverted (which merely means altered unexpectedly…. get your mind out of the gutter, please….) by that inertia, making the behavior of the entire entity rather completely unpredictable by any normal means, and certainly by no means of which we are capable at this point in our mental development…. Even cloud-computing won’t resolve such huge numbers….

The economy of the world, as an outgrowth of the society which engages in it, is suffering in the throes of unbridled, undisciplined growth… The number of people on the planet is bumping right up against the total number of those it is POSSIBLE for the planet to support, in a real, physical sense…. That fact, not factoid, is, of course, calmly being ignored by society at large, and we continue to produce alarming numbers of people, along with the alarming amount of grunge that each person seems to require, every second of every day….. If it were a medical issue, we would call what is happening in the world of money, and society in general, “cancerous”, as it is steadily, unflinchingly, irrevocably eating itself alive from the inside…..

I’m going to set myself a small task… As a finishing exercise for this small rant against the general stupidity of our species, I’m going to go perform a quick data mining expedition on the front pages of the news… I’ll bet I can come up with at least four or five examples from this morning’s batch of headlines that will serve as examples of some part of what I’ve outlined above…. Let’s see what the world is up to, eh?….

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Judge-orders-removal-of-San-Diego-war-cross-5059879.php

(Oooh, politics AND religion, in one article…. How many opinion-based arguments will we hear on this one, do you think?….)

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Sunnyvale-car-dealer-pleads-no-contest-to-sales-5060326.php

(Apparently, the urge to lie, cheat, and steal extends into every level, and every corner of society, not merely the government….)

http://blog.sfgate.com/fiore/2013/12/11/im-an-internet-company-im-the-government/

(Another brilliant observation from Mark Fiore, Pulitzer-winning journalist, exposing at least one or two of the falsehoods out there….)

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/House-GOP-conservatives-help-propel-budget-bill-5060806.php

(Congress…. Senate…. budget…. Now, how many of these people would you guess are lying, to you, to each other, and to themselves? Can you say, “ALL OF THEM”?…..)

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/UN-inspectors-confirm-Syria-chemical-attack-5059352.php

(As noted above, the incidence of diseased ethics is not limited to the government of this country alone…..)

There you go…. easy money, if I was getting paid. The five articles I found were all right there on the front page… didn’t have to search beyond there to find enough examples to complete my self-imposed task. I find that both encouraging, and disheartening at the same time…. So much so, I’m done with this for now…. We’re all goin’ to Hell in a Hand Basket, ffolkes, so, we may as well enjoy the ride…..

Then farewell Horace, whom I hated so,–
Not for thy faults, but mine.

— Lord Byron (1788-1824) — Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv, Stanza 77
_____________________________

One’s solace, from tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge, at times, can only be found in the arms of genius…. and serendipity…. Such is the joy of finding this at just this moment, when I needed it most….

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~~ Dylan Thomas ~~

_____________________________

As a practicing hedonist, finding one’s self overwhelmed is an occupational hazard, in a manner of speaking. We’re told our whole lives that there is a price to pay when we over-indulge; at one time or another, all of us have experienced a graphic example of the truth of that little fillip from the gods of laughter, usually bestowed upon us to bring a bit of humor to our lives, at those moments when we least wish to laugh, and most need to…. In short, there’s always a come-uppance when we piss on our own shoes, and crying about it won’t help….

In accepting the truth of that, one doesn’t always give in completely, and learn to “like it”, but, we can learn to live with it, and live with it we must, so, it’s usually best to just do so, and get on with it…. This means, in one respect, at least, that I’m done being sick…. I’ve taken my turn, it’s over now, so can someone else please get on this bus and drive it away? I’m through with it….. Thank you….

Now that’s settled, I can see I have a lot of work to do, in my head, and on this blog…. I’ve managed to write so damn much that most people give up, I think…. Not that I’m writing for other ffolkes, but, it’s nice to know they’re out there, and that I’m not talking to the wall…. Any who, I’m coming to terms with having traveled over 50,000 miles in the past nine months, more than I’ve covered in the previous 12 years, or more, and my body needs to take a break…. This will mean I’m online more, so, we’ll see if I can’t get around to see more of other ffolkes’s blogs, which I do miss being able to get to…. As John Carter of Mars said, “While I live, there is hope….”

Here’s a pearl, composed of random pearls, to finish off this Pearl…..   😆

“How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life.” — Marcus Aurelius

“Reality is a much bigger concept than I thought.” — Smart Bee

“Education never ends… It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.” — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self.” — Nietzsche

He only earns his freedom and his life
Who takes them every day by storm.

— Goethe, from Faust

“What is the first business of one who studies philosophy? To part with self-conceit. For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows.” — Epictetus (c. 60 AD) — How to apply general Principles to particular Cases, — Discourses, Book ii, Chap. xvii

“I grow old ever learning many things.”– Solon 630 – 555 BC

Serendipity, indeed! John Carter was right! Seven perfect, matching pearls, all of great age and luster, but for one, one that serves as an exact counterpoint to the rest, providing the perfect balance…. God, I love this job…. oh, wait….. shoot….. Oh, well, still fun….
_____________________________

Euripides was wont to say, “Silence is an answer to a wise man.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Of Bashfulness

Another outburst of egotistical meanderings, just as if anyone cared, or was even listening…. If nothing else, one must give points for persistence, eh? And proofing, I’m good at the proofing, generally…. Let’s try that for a moment or two… I’m really not sure what to think about this…. so, I won’t. I’m outta here, ffolkes, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it now…. See you tomorrow, I think…..

Y’all take care out there,
and May the Metaphorse be with you;
Blessed Be, dearest  Carole, Mark, and Theresa…
and everyone else, too…

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

dozer3